Literacy, Personalized

Lately, I have been exploring personalized learning as an approach to meeting all students’ needs. Personalized learning “places the interests and abilities of learners at the center of their education experience. In personalized learning, educators develop environments in which students and teachers together build plans for learners to achieve both interest-based and standards-based goals” (Halverson et al, 2015). What I am finding is there is no “gold standard” for this approach. Maybe the concept is too big. Maybe personalized learning is too new. Maybe I haven’t studied it enough!

Because I have a focus on literacy and leadership, I thought about what personalized learning might resemble in a reading and writing classroom, specifically. How is it different from what we might expect from a more traditional classroom? Below are the elements of personalized learning as outlined by Allison Zmuda, co-author of Learning Personalized: The Evolution of a Contemporary Classroom (Jossey-Bass, 2015): Time & Space; Assignments; Curriculum; Reporting; Feedback; Roles. Next are a smattering of ideas on how personalized learning might apply to the literacy block. If you have more suggestions, share them in the comments.

Time & Space

Ensure that enough time is provided daily for authentic literacy experiences, especially independent reading and writing on topics of students’ choice.

Provide more modern furniture for students to engage in reading and writing. For models, check out a local library or an independent bookstore.

Create natural locations in the classroom for students to share what they are reading and writing. Small tables and mounted counters with stools could work.

Audit the instructional day to find more time to read and write, and jettison anything that is not at the same level of effectiveness.

Position book shelves and writing materials so they invite students into reading and writing in authentic contexts, i.e. journaling, blogging, book reviews.

Assignments

Replace book reports with book reviews. Use digital tools such as Biblionasium for students to post book reviews for peers.

Replace book logs with personal journals. Provide open-ended notebooks for students to write about what they are reading so they can share their thinking with peers the next school day (or keep their thoughts to themselves).

Cancel the school’s annual subscription to Accelerated Reader. There is no independently-conducted research that shows Accelerated Reader is an effective literacy program. See the What Works Clearinghouse report for more information.

Reduce reading projects to the bare minimum with regard to how students are expected to respond to their reading.

Implement book talks to replace some of the assessments previously questioned. We can gain more information about a student’s understanding of a text through them sharing what they are reading verbally than from inauthentic assignments.

Curriculum

Integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening into all other curriculum renewal activities. Performance tasks are especially good opportunities to incorporate literacy.

Make a list of and provide relevant authentic texts that capture the time period of a point in history.

Curate a list of biographies about famous scientists that students might want to research for a written report.

Craft big questions that lead students to pursue knowledge online, which will provide opportunities to critically read web-based resources.

Incorporate writing into formative assessment points, such as constructed responses and personal reflections.

Reporting

Develop rubrics for writing genres with students, after a lot of immersion into authentic texts of the genre to be learned.

Teach students how to self-assess writing at every stage of the process.

Facilitate monitoring of reading goals through journaling, blogging, and published book reviews.

Replace grades for reading and writing with frequent qualitative feedback.

Utilize digital assessment tools such as FreshGrade to share student learning results in literacy with family members and colleagues.

Feedback

Utilize online writing tools such as Google Docs to facilitate feedback between classmates.

Partner with other classrooms locally and/or globally to facilitate feedback between students.

Provide anchor papers of past work for students to reference when striving to improve their writing.

Meet with students regularly during independent reading and writing to affirm strengths and offer strategies for improvement.

Teach students to end a draft of writing with questions they have about parts they are unsure about to guide feedback from the teacher or peers.

Roles

Assign one student to be the class notetaker during a demonstration lesson for a reading or writing strategy.

Rotate the role of classroom researcher to students. When questions come up during the literacy block, this student is tasked with finding an answer.

Set up a website (Google Sites, Weebly) where students can publish their finished pieces of writing as authors.

Designate one or more students to write a weekly newsletter, highlighting the happenings in the classroom. Share this out digitally and on paper with families.

Put students in charge of the classroom library, after lots of modeling on how to organize the titles and display the covers.

As I completed this list, I realized that a lot of these literacy activities are what typically happens in the best classrooms for reading and writing. Is it reasonable to think that personalized learning naturally happens in an authentic literacy environment?

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Author: Matt Renwick

Matt Renwick is an 18-year public educator who began as a 5th and 6th-grade teacher in Rudolph, WI. He now serves as an elementary principal for the Mineral Point Unified School District (http://mineralpointschools.org/). Matt also teaches online graduate courses in curriculum design and instructional leadership for the University of Wisconsin-Superior. He tweets @ReadByExample and writes for ASCD (www.ascd.org) and Lead Literacy (www.leadliteracy.com).
View all posts by Matt Renwick

4 thoughts on “Literacy, Personalized”

Our district has been working toward personalization for several years now. It’s a journey that requires thoughtful steps forward, a growth mindset, and a shift from teacher centered classrooms. For me, the easiest way to think about personalization is to shift toward student ownership. Do our literacy workshops allow for learner agency? The opportunity for students to self-assess, set their own goals and plan their next steps is essential. I appreciated the suggestions for collaboration and connection within and beyond the classroom.

I’m looking forward to checking out your book suggestion. Most of our work has focused around the work of Bray and McClaskey.

As I worked on my masters degree in Literacy, my district was also working to learn about and begin implementing personalized learning. I very strongly feel that best practice in literacy instruction very much mirrors the underlying elements of personalized learning. Your last statement is spot on!